Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska was a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent, she resided in Kraków until the end of her life. In Poland, Szymborska's books have reached sales rivaling prominent prose authors', though she wrote in a poem, "Some Like Poetry", that "perhaps" two in a thousand people like poetry.

Kórnik is a town with about 7,600 inhabitants (2018), located in western Poland, about 25 kilometres (16 mi) south-east of the city of Poznań. It is one of the major tourist attractions of the Wielkopolska region and the Greater Poland Voivodeship because of the historical castle and arboretum, which is amongst the oldest and richest collections of trees and shrubs in Poland, and one of Europe's largest arboretums.